Texas Football: Position-by-position report card from non-conference play

Mostly good all-around efforts from Texas football in the first three weeks of the regular season led to two wins to cap non-conference play.

The non-conference slate for the Texas football program did well to prepare them for the Big 12 opener against the Oklahoma State Cowboys which is set for Sep. 21. Texas didn’t have a single FCS opponent on the slate, which is usual for this program.

Oklahoma State brings with them a 3-0 record in their non-conference slate. Both Texas and Oklahoma State are done with the non-conference portions of their schedule. Since both schools are primarily rivals with the Oklahoma Sooners, they usually get their non-conference schedules out of the way before Big 12 play arrives.

However, head Texas football coach Tom Herman has a lot of pressure on his shoulders to come out of the gates hot during the Big 12 slate. Oklahoma State is a tough way to open up conference play, but the loss to the LSU Tigers back in Week 2 left the margin for error for Texas slim to none for the remainder of the regular season.

The wins in the non-conference slate came over the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in the season opener and the Rice Owls in Week 3. Texas beat Louisiana Tech in Week 1 by the final score of 45-14 and Rice in Week 3 (this weekend) 48-13. The scoring for those two Group of Five opponents mostly didn’t come until Herman tossed the backups in late in the second half.

And the sole loss for Texas during non-conference play came to No. 4 LSU by the final score of 45-38. That was a very close loss at home.

Here’s a look into the definitive grades for each position group for the Texas Longhorns football program entering Week 4 and the Big 12 opener with non-conference play out of the way.